I seem to randomly lose the alignment on my camera. Are the camera setting stored in a library somewhere? I know that if the camera moves it will need to be re aligned, but I don’t think that is my issue. Can computers be switched?
No one ever does, yet it almost always is. 
The settings are stored in your prefs.ini file. You can also export / import them by right-clicking in the Camera Control window.
What kind of laser are you using, and where is the camera mounted? If the alignment only goes out in the Y direction, it’s the lid not opening to the same place every time. If it also moves side to side, then it could be a loose hinge, camera loose in the mount, or that you’re not putting the top of the material to the focus point of the laser before you update the capture.
The math and numbers do not drift - nothing changes the numbers except using the alignment or lens wizards, so the only thing that can cause the alignment to slowly drift is something mechanical:
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The camera itself moves relative to the machine
- hinge movement from loose hinges or lateral play (common on K40’s, some others)
- lid doesn’t open to the same spot
- camera moved within the mount
- mount moved because of flexible mounting material
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The machine moves relative to the camera
- didn’t set the material height before capturing
- changed the focus height of the machine by moving a lens tube or changing lenses
- changed the machine positioning by bumping or moving a limit switch
Thanks Oz. I’m on an EBay red and black version and the camera is on the lid. For these test I did not close the lid or cause any movement. I had been using the camera for awhile with ok results. After ready through the forum, I realized I had been doing the alignment wrong. I had been using the same patter over and over again. So, this time I started from scratch, calibrated the camera, cut a new pattern and did the alignment. Everything looked great. Leaving the lid alone, I shut down the laser and LightBurn and then restarted. This time it was off by half an inch in both X and Y. I did every TV hung over again, the only difference is I saved the LightBurn file. This time it came back almost dead on. That’s when I started wondering where the alignment is stored. I bouncy between my MacBook Pro and a Slow Mac Mini. My son has his own license on another Mac Pro. Should the alignment be done on each computer? Is it just better todo a new alignment at the start of an important project?
The alignment data is stored on the PC, so if you’re using more than one computer, you’d need to either do the alignment (and lens calibration) on each, or just transfer it. Right-click on the Camera Control window and you can export / import the camera calibration data.
If it was on the same machine, and you hadn’t touched anything at all, that shouldn’t happen. Double check that your X-Shift / Y-Shift and Width/Height values are all zero’d. If they weren’t, but they weren’t saved, that would be an issue too.
Yes, I think the problem was that it hadn’t or I hadn’t saved it yet. It all seems to be working fine now. The camera is a great feature and will get a lot of use. Thanks for the help.
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